Introducing AskMen deTOX

Masculinity Is At What Feels Like A Crisis Point. So What Do We Do Now?

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Masculinity is at what feels like a crisis point.

Feminism is on the rise and has been advancing the cause of women at home, in school, and in the workplace for decades. With the appearance of the #MeToo movement, the cloak is being pulled back from male sexual abuse long hidden under wraps. As the drumbeat of gun violence intensifies, the overwhelming maleness of mass shooters is becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Terms like "mansplaining" and "manspreading," "male privilege" and "toxic masculinity" are burrowing their way into mainstream thought. Educational outcomes for men and the percentage of men in school are both dropping, fast, and with them, professional and financial ones. The idea of "male mental health," long paid lip service to by publications like this one, is sharpening into a piercing thing we ignore at our peril.

What is going on with men right now?

More than ever, traditional masculinity and manliness feel like they're under attack. Hemmed in on all sides by a pop culture they see as increasingly feminist and female-friendly, men today are torn between a model no longer fully accepted by the world around them and a world around them for which they have no functioning model.

Can they hold the door for a woman? Compliment her dress? Ask her for her number?

Depending on your level of comfort with gender, these questions might feel ludicrous or frivolous, but for many men they are pressing and profoundly anxiogenic. Publications like AskMen, nominally about helping men better themselves, in focusing on avoiding the stench of sexism that hovers over these angry male-dominated communities, have failed in a profound way to reach out to these men and engage with them.

deTOX is our attempt to open up a dialogue with and about today's frustrated young men, who are feeling attacked for privileges they didn't ask for and didn't know they had, and for want of a mainstream movement to help them integrate into society in a healthy way are turning away from women and from the notion of cross-gender cooperation and diving headfirst into the toxic pools of online hate that have cropped up online.

How can we, as experts in maleness and in betterment, help these men feel better, live better and get better? Because you might not believe that there's such a thing as "toxic masculinity," but how else do you describe the reality that men are more violent, die younger, open up less and are increasingly viewed as dangerous by everyone else? Or: When was the last time a man could walk up to a woman or child on the street and not elicit at least a little concern? Why is maleness conflated first and foremost with a potential to harm?